Bad Deal

The AT&T PEG proposal to Fayetteville is inferior. We believe that AT&T needs to pick up, carry and convert the PEG broadcasts in our community at their cost. This would be outside of the 1% PEG payment being proposed by AT&T in other markets.


Fayetteville needs to require an additional 1% to operate PEG, so it doesn’t become an expense for the cityl.

Section 4c leaves it up to AT&T to tell Fayetteville what technology is needed and that Fayetteville is responsible.

4d says that Fayetteville is to place its programming on "the public internet" so AT&T can come get it and put it on their cable system? Do you have any idea what that will do to the quality of what your citizens see? It will be terrible!

There is no mention whatsoever of any ongoing capital or operational funding, such as an amount equal to 1% of the franchise fee, or a per-sub per-month fee (like 61 cents a month as is the case in Madison).

DON'T sign this if you are interested in preserving PEG in Fayetteville!

Faytteville will need a high capacity data connection ($1200 or so a month) and a 15K capture card. One of each for every PEG channel.

Fayetteville will need:

1. A T1 Connection ($1200 Per Mo. Min) (X2?)

2. A $15,000 capture Card (X2)

3. A computer to act as a server (X2)

4. An Operator to encode metadata (information about the program) per
channel (X2)

5. Access given to AT&T, to the Computers

6. Enough Rack Space to hold all of this Equip ( I estimate Min. 11 RU:
2 x Computers @ 3 RU Ea (6 RU), 1x Spacer Between them (now 7 RU),1 RU
Spacer btw the keyboard assy and the CPU's (8 RU) 2x LCD/Keyboard Assy
in a 1 RU cabnet (10 RU) and 1X RU Spacer Between the Keyboard Trays= 11
RU).

7. New Network cabling, and RG6 and Belden Audio Cable from the Video
Router

Dont know what Audio/Video software is needed to handle this feat and
associated specs., What OS will it run?, how much power will this unit
need, how much heat will this give off?

Obviously 30K is too much for video encoders, at least for this
operation to bear, Plus 2400 per month is too much for Internet
Connectivity, We do not have the budget!

Representatives from AT&T met with several Michigan municipal cable television managers recently to explain the technology behind their plans to include public, educational and governmental access channels in their IPTV service.

They are not currently offering any PEG channels to their test market customers in Austin, Texas, and many of the details still are
not completely worked out.

Here is a summary of what they are planning.

PEG operators will need to:

1. feed their signal through a video capture card and load it onto a website,

2. requiring probably a T-1 equivalent connection

3. and, a host server.

AT&T will download live and archived PEG feeds to requesting customers.

Meta-data would need to be included in uploaded video so it can be used to identify programming and feed customer program guides. PEG channel

websites could be either public or private. Making them public raises security, copyright and other issues.

We need not talk about who pays the capital and operating costs because the meeting was limited to the technology issues but AT&T
indicated that the 1 percent PEG fee they are offering (but, not to Fayetteville) could be used to pay those costs.

The AT&T capture card for PEG costs $15,000 per location according to the AT&T reps and that in other markets a 1% PEG payment over the 5% franchise fee paid to the city may be used for purchase of this card.

I'm looking for any leads on the "return line" or "upstrearm" costs associated with ATT's plan. I see this as a MAJOR sticking point here in Wisconsin. ATT wants the stations to pay for all of this. I need to convince legislators that it would be prohibitively expensive for centers to have to pay for this AND that when ATT agrees to carry access channels, it should mean getting programming from our locations to their "headend" or whatever they call it.

Bottom line: I would like to know if any access center in Texas has had to use ATT's system and what it is costing their stations in black boxes and uplink leasing fees to be carried

AT&T has to be responsible for coming and getting our signals from their origination points ON THEIR DIME - it's just as much their responsibility as it is the incumbent cable ops. The 1% fee must NOT be used for that. The 1% fee is for ongoing capital purchases etc and support of PEG efforts.

Brad Clark

Station Manager

Madison City Channel